The family of a husband and wife who were murdered in Western Sydney say they will spend the rest of their lives in tears and pain, and begged a judge to impose a just and decisive punishment on the man responsible.<\/p>\n
Kwang Kyung Yoo pleaded guilty to murdering Min Cho, her husband Steven Cho and a seven-year-old child in February 2024.<\/p>\n
Yoo was the owner and operator of Lion’s Taekwondo and Martial Arts Academy in North Parramatta and was known as “Master Lion”.<\/p>\n
He murdered Ms Cho and the child at that academy, before also killing Mr Cho at the couple’s home in Baulkham Hills.<\/p>\n
If you or anyone you know needs help:<\/p>\n
The 51-year-old hung his head in the dock of King Street Supreme Court during a sentence hearing on Thursday as victim impact statements were read aloud and friends and family watched on.<\/p>\n
In a statement read by a family friend, Ms Cho’s parents said their lives had been “utterly destroyed”.<\/p>\n
“Every moment we breathe is painful. Being alive in itself feels like a punishment,” they said.<\/p>\n
The parents described how “life isn’t what it used to be”, with happiness and laughter disappearing and leaving “excruciating pain” and despair in their place.<\/p>\n
“We will spend the rest of our lives in tears and pain, waiting for death.”<\/p>\n
They described their daughter as always optimistic, thoughtful and constantly smiling.<\/p>\n
They said Yoo’s merciless hands had crushed all of her dreams and hopes.<\/p>\n
They asked Justice Ian Harrison to “deliver a just and decisive judgement” that would result in some remedy to the injustice.<\/p>\n
‘Tissues soaked in tears’<\/p>\n
In his statement, Ms Cho’s older brother said he was no longer motivated to face each day, and questioned how his mother and father must feel.<\/p>\n
“Mum’s vanity table is piled high with tissues soaked in tears,” he said in the statement, read in court by the family friend.<\/p>\n
“I just can’t figure it out, Min, what should I live for?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The bodies of a woman and child were found at Lion’s Taekwondo studio in North Parramatta. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)<\/p>\n
The parents of Mr Cho also provided statements to be read by the judge privately.<\/p>\n
According to a set of agreed facts, Yoo was behind on his rent and also had about $3,200 owing on a credit card.<\/p>\n
Prior to the murders, he lied to his wife about being offered more work at a school, which he falsely claimed would also provide him with a BMW.<\/p>\n
Ms Cho, 41, drove a BMW and was murdered by Yoo in a rear storeroom of the martial arts academy on the evening of February 19, 2024.<\/p>\n
The agreed facts revealed he then recommenced taekwondo classes.<\/p>\n
Later that evening, he called his wife and said: “The car has arrived.”<\/p>\n
Yoo then strangled the child in the storeroom before taking Ms Cho’s BMW key and driving her car to the family home in Baulkham Hills.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police at the scene where the bodies of a woman and child were found. (ABC News: Jessica Rendall)<\/p>\n
There, he fatally stabbed Mr Cho, but during the struggle, his third victim managed to stab the offender back several times in self-defence.<\/p>\n
Yoo told his wife he had been stabbed and needed to go to hospital, before lying to medical staff and telling them he’d been attacked in a Woolworths car park.<\/p>\n
After reviewing CCTV of the area, police couldn’t find any evidence of an attack.<\/p>\n
‘A grandiose or self-important fantasy’<\/p>\n
The agreed facts reveal that the evidence suggests Yoo had an obsession with luxury items, social status and wealth.<\/p>\n
He inspected multi-million-dollar properties in Rose Bay and Vaucluse and discussed buying a Lamborghini worth nearly $650,000 and a $713,000 Bentley at car dealerships.<\/p>\n
According to the documents, he showed the mother of one of his students a photo of the Harbour Bridge and a Lamborghini, falsely claiming them to be the view from his home and his car.<\/p>\n
He lied about having a master’s degree and PhD in exercise science and having competed in the Olympics in taekwondo.<\/p>\n
According to Taekwondo Australia, most of the prizes he claimed to have won were false.<\/p>\n
Forensic psychiatrist Andrew Ellis told the court today that Yoo had engaged in forms of grandiose fantasy through his lies.<\/p>\n
They were “essentially a grandiose or self-important fantasy that he’s richer, that he has more social status, and that he has more success in life,” Dr Ellis said.<\/p>\n
“They were in part to impress other people, but I think primarily to make him feel psychologically more secure because his own concept of his social and financial standing was poor in reality.”<\/p>\n
Yoo told the psychiatrist he made a spontaneous decision about the murders on the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, there was evidence he had visited the Baulkham Hills property multiple times leading up to the crimes.<\/p>\n
Dr Ellis accepted it was possible the intention to kill was formed two or three weeks beforehand.<\/p>\n
But he said Yoo was not really able to say what his motives were.<\/p>\n
“His overall insight into his motives was very limited, and his ability to convey a coherent reason for what he’d done wasn’t present,” he said.<\/p>\n
Yoo’s lies were “psychiatrically unusual” because they were easily able to be refuted if anyone looked into them.<\/p>\n
“It’s an immature way of managing your own self-image,” Dr Ellis said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kate Ratcliffe says life in prison is an appropriate penalty for Yoo. (ABC News: Jamie McKinnell)<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Kate Ratcliffe said the Crown’s principle submission was that life imprisonment was the appropriate penalty.<\/p>\n
Yoo’s defence counsel, Richard J Wilson SC, said a penalty of life imprisonment was not necessary and disputed the Crown’s suggestion Yoo was motivated by “jealousy and hatred” of the couple.<\/p>\n
Mr Wilson said it was still somewhat of “a mystery” how a previously well-respected man ended up committing such crimes.<\/p>\n
The court heard when Yoo was being taken into a mental health unit in custody, he was asked whether it was his first time and whether he had any concerns.<\/p>\n
He replied: “Everything I’ve done \u2026 I feel shame, guilt, sorrow”.<\/p>\n
Justice Harrison will sentence Yoo on December 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a husband and wife who were murdered in Western Sydney say they will spend the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1108,176583,43,176582,176586,44,176585,176587,176584,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-311591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-court","9":"tag-family-murder","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-kwang-kyung-yoo","12":"tag-min-cho","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sentence-hearing","15":"tag-steven-cho","16":"tag-taekwondo-instructor","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}